DUBAI // A limousine driver will spend two years in jail for secretly filming a newlywed couple having sex in the back seat of his car during their honeymoon.
The 28-year-old then tried to blackmail the couple out of Dh2,000 using the footage.
The Indian couple ordered a limo from their hotel room at Four Points by Sheraton to drive them to The Dubai Mall at 4pm on February 12.
When the car stopped at a junction in Zabeel, the driver said he noticed movements from the closed-off rear area of the car.
He turned on a camera fixed in the back seat, which the couple didn’t know about, and saw them having sex.
“So I filmed them without their knowledge,” the Pakistani told investigators. He said he dropped the couple at their hotel after the trip was over then, a few hours later, he contacted the husband on WhatsApp and told him that he had something personal to show him.
The driver called the husband later that night and told him about the clip and demanded Dh2,000 or else he would post the video on social media.
The two agreed to meet at the hotel, so the husband could pay the money and the driver would delete the clip. However, when the driver arrived, police were there and they arrested him.
The husband’s 30-year-old Indian friend told Dubai Criminal Court that his friend called him and told him about the clip and the blackmail.
“I met him at the hotel and then we went to Al Raffa police station and reported the incident, after which my friend and his wife flew back to India and I followed up with police,” the friend testified.
In court in May, the driver admitted to breaching the privacy of the married couple, blackmailing them and using telecommunication means to carry out his offence.
His phone was confiscated as per the court’s orders and he will be deported after completing his jail term.
salamir@thenational.ae
